Is 1/8 inch of clearence between the front ocular of a scope and the barrel enough clearence? the rifle is a 300 win mag with a lighter sporter type barrel that is free floating, i am concerned that the barrel could hit the scope. What do you guys think?

I have a rifle with the scope bell mounted 0.010" from the barrel, without a problem. It does not touch. When firing, the chamber end of the barrel doesn't move much at all, maybe a few 0.00001". Think of it this way -- many rifles have free floated barrels with the forearm channel only 0.015" or so clearance from the barrel without the barrel touching the stock when firing. The generally accepted rule of thumb is if you can slide a piece of paper between the barrel and stock channel, the barrel is sufficiently floated and usually won't touch the stock during firing. While we all know it does move, I've never seen a study that actually measured the amount of lateral movement the barrel makes when firing, and it would vary depending on the caliber the rifle is chambered for, the length of the barrel, and the barrel contour. I've seen slow-mo video of .50 caliber rifles being shot, which shows visible movement of the entire rifle/scope, but that is an extreme case. With standard hunting calibers, the amount of barrel whip would probably only be a couple 0.001"

Ted

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I've seen the .50 cal. slow-mo video also and it is amazing. Even the scope tube flexes to a surprising degree. As Rifle Dude mentioned, though, that is an extreme example involving a cartridge which produces around four times the muzzle energy of most deer rifles.

There is a rather strange phenomenon that occurs when a rifle is fired, which I seldom hear discussed. What happens is that upon firing, the bullet is violently forced into the rifling lands, and because barrel steel is ductile, it gives a little as the bullet passes, immediatly shrinking back to it's former dimensions. Imagine a moving bulge, similar to a snake swallowing a rat. This is one of the reasons behind freefloating your barrel in the forend; to give this bulge room to pass without interference which could cause the barrel to bounce upward upon contact. Again, we are talking about a few ten-thousanths of an inch, not enough to cause problems in your situation.

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